Project management 2.0

Project Management 2.0[1] (sometimes mistakenly called Social Project Management[2]) is one branch of evolution of project management practices, which was enabled by the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies. Such applications include: blogs, wikis, collaborative software, etc. Because of Web 2.0 technologies, small distributed & virtual teams can work together much more efficiently by utilizing the new-generation, usually low or no-cost Web-based project management tools.[3] These tools challenge the traditional view of the project manager, as Project Management 2.0 represents a dramatic increase in the ability for distributed teams' collaboration. While Web 2.0 tools and Project Management 2.0 systems may enable the project team to collaborate more richly online, these tools often have no audit-able project management functionality, and the Project Management 2.0 term may be a misnomer.[4]

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While traditional project management structures focused on the paradigm of the project manager as controller,[5] Project management 2.0 stresses the concept of distributed collaboration, and the project manager as a leader.[6] Project management 2.0 advocates open communication. While traditional project management often was driven by formal reporting and hierarchical structures, project management 2.0 stresses the need for access to information for the whole team. This has led to one of the many criticisms of Project Management 2.0 - that it cannot scale to large projects. However, for distributed teams performing agile development, which are often emergent structures, the use of rich collaborative software may enable the development of collective intelligence

Common comparisons of traditional project management vs. project management 2.0 are listed in the table below.

Project Management 2.0 is sometimes treated as a neologism and a marketing buzzword. The argument exists that Project Management 2.0 does not represent a new way of executing project management and delivering projects,[7] but just a variation of traditional project management.

Sometimes Project Management 2.0 is regarded as a separate methodology of project management that can be applied to small projects only.

Web 2.0 and PM 2.0 tools are often islands of technology, and do not enable collaboration across multiple project teams, unless all teams have chosen the same tool implementation.